{"id":477638,"date":"2026-05-10T11:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/477638\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T11:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:25:12","slug":"award-for-scientist-who-brought-space-to-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/477638\/","title":{"rendered":"Award for scientist who brought space to millions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A British university scientist has been honoured with one of US astronomy&#8217;s most prestigious awards for his work sharing his knowledge of space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">James O&#8217;Donoghue, from the University of Reading, has produced more than 100 educational animations on space, which have been viewed more than 400 million times around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The American Astronomical Society (AAS) awarded the planetary scientist the 2026 Carl Sagan Medal, recognising his &#8220;unique and impactful&#8221; communication to the general public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The award is named after iconic US scientist Carl Sagan, who brought the universe into people&#8217;s living rooms in the 20th Century with his 1980 documentary series Cosmos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">O&#8217;Donoghue said space was &#8220;one of the few subjects that almost everyone is curious about, and that curiosity is worth taking seriously&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said: &#8220;When people understand what&#8217;s happening on other planets, it changes how they see our own world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Sharing that science as widely and accessibly as possible is just as important as doing it in the first place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Black and white image of Carl Sagan, who has combed over dark hair and is wearing a turtle neck jumper. Behind him is a graphic of the universe.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/edfdf30f8c1010a72df1460a4eb8d96a.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The award is named after US astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan [Getty Images]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Alongside his animations, O&#8217;Donoghue regularly contributes to national and local media outlets, including the BBC and PBS in America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He also organises the University of Reading&#8217;s annual Observe the Moon Night, which is an annual stargazing event that draws hundreds of people to the campus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Explaining its selection, the AAS said O&#8217;Donoghue was an &#8220;extraordinarily creative and effective communicator&#8221; whilst also being a &#8220;recognised leader&#8221; in planetary science.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He truly exemplifies the spirit of the Sagan Prize through the combination of his unique and impactful communication work with his scientific leadership,&#8221; it added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Previous winners of the award have been recognised for communicating research on topics including the origins of the Moon and the search for habitable planets beyond our solar system.<\/p>\n<p>More on this storyRelated internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British university scientist has been honoured with one of US astronomy&#8217;s most prestigious awards for his work&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[72329,209198,35330,209196,209199,18,19,17,209197,165499,133,23997],"class_list":{"0":"post-477638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-american-astronomical-society","9":"tag-british-university-scientist","10":"tag-carl-sagan","11":"tag-carl-sagan-medal","12":"tag-educational-animations","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-james-o39donoghue","17":"tag-planetary-scientist","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-university-of-reading"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116550037561588442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}